Just a quick free write.

The person I stole these icons and layouts from is someone very close to me. They live with chronic pain from a freak incident that resulted in emergency surgery. Their spouse also suffers from severe depression. Won't admit it. Doesn't see the signs. Or the pain this depression has brought to the lives of others. That's the nature of depression. This is a mental illness. Keyword? ILLNESS. This doesn't just go away. It needs treatment. It also needs a spotlight shined on it so people can understand it. The couple's combination is one of the most heartbreaking that can occur. While one person needs physical attention due to pain and disability, the other needs help that can't always be given because of pain and disability. While one person needs mental attention and time to focus on themselves to help the healing process, the other needs someone to pick something up from the floor because it fell out of reach. It's a story I wanted to tell because people need to know. Understanding is a central part of this age we live in. We can't growing we don't understand. This isn't a military family, but I can't help thinking about all of the soldiers who return with life changing injuries and the spouses and children whose lives are also changed forever. I have permission to share this story. It's nothing publish worthy, just a rambling writing of some moments in someone's life. My Life In A Day Imagine hearing the alarm go off and feeling absolute exhaustion. You listen to the screech, pondering the snooze button, weighing your options. Do I hit snooze and stay in bed to desperately try and catch a few minutes more of rest? Do I get right out of bed and start my day? I'm a fucking morning person. I WANT to get up. I've slept 5 hours in 1 hour spurts. And my body is alive with electricity. Imagine your body being stretched to the limit while each of your limbs is being twisted a full 360 degrees. Imagine this happening while a knife is wedged in your back, lengthwise, hilt resting on your ass, tip pointing to your distant brain. Now have someone stick forks along your spine, playing connect the dots from the knife to your skull. While this is happening, get out of bed and walk. Feel the forks swirl your nerves like spaghetti and the knife carve your flesh. Feel you legs respond backward to what you intend, shooting bolts of pain as they continue to twist and contort. If that sounds like too much, stay in bed and lie on the forks and the knife, or turn so you are off of them, but they jiggle every time you breathe. Time to choose your own adventure. Do you hit snooze and stay in bed to desperately try and catch a few minutes more of rest? Do you get right out of bed and start your day? Beside me, the person I love complains that they haven't slept, complains to the dogs that they don't want to walk them for another ten minutes, sighs of their desperate need for an early bedtime in the night to come. I want to walk the dogs. I LOVE walking dogs. My spouse needs the rest. They work so hard to help me do everything I used to do without thinking. Standing takes time. When it finally happens gravity forces me to the bathroom. Let's get real here. This is one of the mindless tasks people do every day. You sit, you shit, you clean, you get on your way. Not in the life of my day. I sit, I shift, I move one leg, another. Concentration and physical awareness is a must in this crappy puzzle. Two hours later, I hope to be done. Don't forget the forks. And the knife. Spoons? It's early enough that I can pretend I have an infinite supply. But hey, by now all my pets are fed. My clothes are set out for me, whether I want them or not. My things for work are packed. All I have to do is shower, dress, do the rest, and get out the door. My dogs look at me with large round eyes. "Pet me goodbye. Don't you love me?" I think about the knife, the forks. I give up a spoon and bend to caress their heads and play with their soft ears. I smile to keep myself from crying. A work day begins and ends. It's all the same. Do I stand on tired legs that are more unsure of their surroundings the longer they are in use? Do I sit and let the handle of the knife jar against the seat? Then I have to stand. The forks dance as I do. I refuse to run out of spoons. People need me here. They rely on me. I find more spoons tucked away in memories of friendship and love, and keep going. Home. The dogs greet me. "Can we play? Can we? We love you. Don't you love us?" What the hell, we have spoons in the kitchen. We have knives and forks too. The one human I love more than any other is already working on the evening meal. There is laundry. There are chores. I look at the pile of soft fabric and think about lifting it, moving it. How many steps to the wash room? How many dogs to step over? Are there toys in my path? I love to do laundry. I'm weird that way. My spouse needs help to do what needs doing and love makes me lift. Love pushes my numb legs blindly along the distance to the completed task. Danger be damned. Love always wins. Depression is like a cloud between us, a fog that I can see, a fog that creeps a cold, wet touch along my skin. But I can't push it. I can't move it. It surrounds the one heart that is the most a part of me and I can't move it away to see the purity beneath. Dinner sizzles. I drop the pen I was using to to pay bills. I think about the distance from my seat to the floor. How many forks will move if I reach for it? Can I do this without hitting the handle of the knife? What the hell, I'll get a spoon with diner. My eyes water as I reach to reclaim what gravity stole from me. I look to the kitchen, to the person I live for and who lives for me. We smiled once, we laughed in the past, now we ask short questions for the sake of hearing shorter answers. The fog thickens with every breath between us. Forced to sit, I am useless. Forced to stand, to move, to work for two, they have no peace. I cause it all. And I am unable to take it away. "Do you want me to help with dinner?" A meaningless question, but what else can I do? Life is too much for the person I love. It weights down. It overwhelms, it pushes them to the limit. What time do they have for themselves? The little joys slip away, squeezing out between the gaps of an infinite fence. The dryer stops, but the knife and the forks have finally won the day's battle against my spoon supply. All I can do is announce the event and be thankful as dinner is brought to me. My mind repeatedly hits specks of knowledge as we eat, as the dishes get done. A sigh. A stretch. There is too much weight on the one I love and I can't lift it. I have no fan for their fog, my will to do can not push their own will into being. I love to wash dishes, but dishes come with knives and forks. There are too many in the sink this night. Or any other. The fog thickens and crawls on me, seeping into my space from the next room. No words disperse it. When we finally sit for an hour of mindless peace, no touch can brush it away. Bedtime approaches. We stumble through routines and I hold tightly while I can, squeezing as much togetherness into a minute as my body will allow before I can no longer endure the pressure on the parts of me that are full of useless utensils. I roll over and prepare for an hour of sleep before my body wakes me with the movement of forks. Why didn't I save just one more spoon? Take this with you. Use it. May it help many.